


Inevitability (Gravity Makes a Metaphor for You and Me)

by nightrose



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-20
Updated: 2009-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:52:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightrose/pseuds/nightrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing has truly changed between them. This is how it works: Sam leaves, and Dean loves him. It has always been like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitability (Gravity Makes a Metaphor for You and Me)

_**Inevitability**_  
 **Title:** Inevitability (Gravity Makes a Metaphor for You and Me)  
 **Author:** [](http://nightrose-spn.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightrose_spn**](http://nightrose-spn.livejournal.com/)  
 **Pairings:** Sam/Dean  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Word Count:** 2000  
 **Summary:** Nothing has truly changed between them. This is how it works: Sam leaves, and Dean loves him. It has always been like that.  
 **Notes/Warnings:** Spoilers for 5x02. I refused to accept the way the episode ended, so I wrote this. Please review! Language, angst, one wincestuous kiss.

The swaying of the grass is all he can see. It sweeps before his eyes in delirious patterns, like a hallucinogenic. Dazed green waves against azure, sweeping away the tears in his eyes. He is not going to cry, because he is a man, and as he’s told Sam a hundred times, men don’t have feelings.  
Sam.  
God, that was not a good thought to have right now. It spears him deep and vicious, twisting his heart and his eyes so the bright shades of the grass spiral around in a circle. He presses an arm sharply into his gut, bites his lip, and feels the weight of his amulet brush against his hand.  
No.  
He said it was okay. He said it was right. He said that the only thing he’s ever wanted in his life should walk away from him for the some-teenth time.  
A very small part of his mind whispers that maybe Sam wasn’t lying. Maybe it was regret, guilt throbbing and twisting in the way he’s known so well for so long. Self-sacrifice, and isn’t that the Winchester creed?  
The rest of him knows, with a heart-shaking surety, that this is how it goes. Maybe this time, it’s how it ends. Maybe he’ll be roped back into trusting and loving hopelessly a few more times before he’s finally cast adrift, once and for all.  
He told Sam to go because he’s sick and tired of begging Sam to stay. Can’t he take some little power? Can’t he have that, without that spiral of self-hate in his gut?  
His stomach hurts. The cell phone in his pocket is a lead weight and it makes him want to scream. So weak, so weak. Sam has only been gone a few minutes, and already Dean is aching, pleading, needing just to call, to hear his voice even if he’ll never see Sam again.  
There is nothing Sam could do that would break this love. It’s a sad, sickening fact. His baby brother started the apocalypse. He drank demon’s blood. He left again and again and none of it matters.  
From the first moment the tiny warm bundle of Sam’s body was dropped into his arms, he has known this incontrovertibly. Sam owns his soul.  
It sounds like a fool’s statement but it is true. There is nothing he would withhold if Sam asked it. There is nothing Sam wants of him that he can’t give.  
Intuitively, he knows better than to trust his brother, but he cannot stop. How can he? He forgave Sam the moment of transgression, because he cannot deny Sam anything.  
The bench is a firm press beneath him, hard and uncomfortable. He leans forward, laying his torso across it, his face sideways against the wood. The wetness he feels dripping there is only the dew leftover from the morning, even though it’s afternoon. He is certainly not practically drowning in his own gasping, furious grief. He’s felt it before, after all. Stanford and Ruby and a hundred other things. He certainly isn’t stupid and weak enough to fall back in love with girly wide eyes and idiotic floppy bangs for the thousandth time.  
He gasps with the pain in his heart. It’s breaking all over again and the worst is that there was never anything he could do about it. He cannot resist. It’s drilled into him like his own name. He must love Sammy, trust him and protect him and save him over and over again—it does not matter what else comes. Nothing matters beyond the weight of his love for Sam.  
He told Sam to leave, and it makes him laugh once, a sound ringing in the empty park like a sob. He told Sam to leave because just this once he didn’t want Sam telling him. He loves with every aching, twisted broken thing inside him but how much can he take? How long can he be sent away, like this, again and again?  
Sam is everything. Brother and child and lover. Everything he desires and cherishes in this world. Nothing can change that, he knows. There isn’t some magic number of heartbreaks and rejections that will shut the wide-open gates of his love, that will give him the strength to stand against Sam.  
Sam has never had to even ask for one more chance for his trust before. He’s always known he can’t lose his brother’s love.  
Hasn’t he?  
The realization sends the world spinning again. Sam doesn’t know he was lying. After all these years Sam still can’t tell when he’s throwing out protective falsehoods because the truth is too jagged and too cold.  
Sam doesn’t know.  
He pulls out his cell phone and hits the two buttons. “Sammy,” he says, hoarse and quiet.  
“Why are you calling?”  
It sounds like hurt, accusation for self-protection, and the thought that Sam has to protect himself from him sends a quick jolt of sadness for him before he gathers himself enough to speak. “I need to…” These are the hardest words he’s ever spoken in his life. He swallows once, deeply, feels the reverberations in his throat. “Tell you. Sam. I know things between us have changed.”  
“You think.” Sam’s sweet voice is flat and emotionless, without inflection. He recognizes his own tone from the first weeks Sam was at Stanford.  
“I mean. I need to.” He bites his lip and treasures the short, sharp pain. “I’m not real good at talking over my feelings, Sammy. You know that. But I have to…”  
“What do you want to say? Say it. I can take it.”  
And he realizes, gut twisting, what Sam means. “You think I called for that? I’m not gonna hurt you, Sam. Not any way, not ever. I called to say what I never seem to be able to… Shit. I’m sorry, Sam. Okay? Yeah, you fucked things up bigtime. Yeah, you just about ruined it. But I figure if other people can understand, so can I. I believe you—you’re sorry. And if I can’t trust you…”  
“You can’t hunt with me. I know. I get in your way.”  
“Aren’t you listening to me?” He feels like he’s about to throw up, because he has a million walls between these words and the world. It’s all that keeps his too-big fragile heart safe. “I love you,” he whispers into the buzzing silence. “I didn’t mean to tell you to leave, Sam. I was trying to…” His eyes close and he clenches his fists. “I was trying to protect myself. From you going. Again. Hunting isn’t more important than you. Nothing is more important than you. And I…”  
“You idiot,” Sam says quietly. “How could you ever think I wanted to hear you didn’t trust me?”  
Because Sam doesn’t want him. The words tickle the tip of his tongue but he doesn’t say them out loud. Instead, silence reigns for a brief minute and then, “Dean. Do you…” He hears the slow deep breath from the other end of the line. “Do you want me to come back?”  
“Yes.” In the end, it is as simple as that one little word.  
“All right. I’m about ten miles down the highway. Come pick me up.”  
Something inside him that shattered years ago glows bright with light as it heals. Yes, Sam left. Sam always leaves. But this time, Sam came back.  
He tells himself that aloud, in a voice that sounds the same as the silence, “Sam came back.”  
Then he starts up the car.  
His eyes dart along every unremarkable crevice on the side of the road as he searches hungrily for that most familiar face. He’s convinced himself he won’t find it just around the ten-mile mark, when he sees Sam. Cross-legged, head bowed, sitting on the side of the road. He pulls down the window.  
“Sammy!”  
Instantly, the head comes up, bangs flopping to either side of Sam’s head. He is granted a brilliant, shining smile as Sam lopes over to the car. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”  
“I thought you wouldn’t be here.”  
“Maybe we’ve both got some trust issues.” Sam’s still smiling, though, and he reaches out tentatively as Sam sits down, pulling his brother’s mouth to his.  
It’s been a long time since they’ve kissed. Since before hell. Sam’s lips are still soft and gentle, always hesitant. In this one thing, Sam is as needy, as insecure, as he is. He’s spent so long yielding everywhere else, but here he pushes Sam away with words like “brothers” and “wrong.”  
His heart twists. Why? If they both want, why is it wrong? If they love each other, can’t they have each other?  
Is this all it takes to make Sam stay? Does he have to close his eyes and give here as well? Because he will. This is no sacrifice. It’s a gift. It’s him getting something he wants. He could never pull away from Sam, no matter how many times he tried. There is no way he could fight it, not any more than he could spring forth from the hold of the earth and fly.  
It feels a little bit the same, though. Like he’s up in the air with nothing to hold on to and nothing to hold him back. He’s free, except for the one bond nothing can break. His love for Sam will never go, no matter how far away he’s gone.  
“Sammy,” he whispers, and Sam’s lips pull away.  
Sam presses one long finger against his lips and says softly, “I love you.”  
Maybe that means he’ll stay, but maybe not. Still, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care in this moment. It will be a while (forever) before he can trust Sam. Not trust Sam not to turn back to evil, that he honestly believes won’t happen again. Before he can trust Sam to stay.  
He has this moment, the two of them touching softly, gently.  
“Stay,” he says.  
“I promise.”  
He almost, almost believes. “Sam. Just so you know.” He pries Sam’s hand from his face, wraps it in his fingers. “I forgive you.”  
The taste of absolution is sweet on Sam’s mouth as he tastes his lips. “Thank you, thank you,” Sam is whispering.  
Sam didn’t single-handedly ruin the world. They did it together. And he can’t save it alone. They will do it together.  
This time, when he looks at the sky, he sees the brightness of the sun breaking through the clouds and the blue. He drives. Destination: nowhere, as so many times before. They wait for a phone call, for a cry for help, that day. When it doesn’t come, they stop for the night somewhere with wireless so they can find someone to save.  
Sam doesn’t talk much, and he doesn’t push his brother to open up. He just waits quietly, the two of them side by side. He takes his answer when Sam asks for a room with only one bed. They fall into it together. It’s not a time for love-making, they know. Just for the two of them to stay close, arm in arm. They sigh out one breath as the night falls. They touch gently, cautiously, like the other might turn to smoke beneath their fingertips at any moment, and wait for someone to need them or for the world to end.  
Either way, it’ll be together—or so he prays, lips moving silently against the sweat-soft skin of Sam’s neck.


End file.
